Search, Ponder, & Play: A Review

Search, Ponder, and Play is a game published by Covenant Communications. It's based on Andy Looney's Aquarius (here). And when it was first published had quite a bit of controversy surrounding it (read about it here). The game is for 2-5 players and, because of the way the game can be played, can take anywhere from 15 minutes to 45 minutes.

How to Play
The gameplay is pretty straight forward, each player is dealt one of the Search cards (there are 5, one for each book of scripture: Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, Doctrine & Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price). The card you are dealt determines your goal for that round. The goal is to get a total of 7 images, that match your Search card, to connect. I know, that doesn't make much sense, but it will in just a minute.

So, on your turn, you draw a card and then play a card to the table. Cards may be played as long as at least a part of the side of the card you play matches a part of the side of a card already on the table (you place it along side of that card, like in the picture below; you can see that the yellow has 4 images connected at the moment).

So, if you have the yellow Search card, then you'd need 3 more yellow images to connect to those 4 in some fashion or other. Your Search card stays hidden so that other players don't know what you are going after, but you can start to deduce what Search cards other players have as the game progresses.

There are also cards that let you, for example, pick up a card from the table, move a card on the table, or even switch hands with another player. These are the Ponder cards. The cards you play to the table, that have the different images on them, those are the Play cards. That's how you get the whole Search, Ponder, & Play!

The game also includes a pad of paper where you can list every player and the different Search cards they've won with. The rules suggest playing until one player has won with all 5 different Search cards, but for what the game is, that takes way too long. I mean, you might win one time with the blue and then be dealt the blue Search card again, yes, you might be able to switch Search cards in the middle of a round and win with another color, but it would just take too long, for me anyway, playing until someone wins with all 5 Search cards. Just playing as many rounds as you like, keeping track of who wins each one, that is easier for me to handle.

I'm giving it a 4 out of 5!

Overall, I think the game is easy to learn, quick to play, and contains a little strategy (like how you place cards on the table, making sure to leave a bunch of open sides of the color you are going after; the rules state that you can start blocking your opponents during the game, but that's only if you've been able to deduce what Search card they have, so that strategy might work in). Kids can also play the game, making it a nice family game. I recommend giving it a try if you haven't yet!

Buy from www.ldsboardgames.com

Mormon Games: Re-themes of Previously Published Games

This is an interesting point of designing and publishing games that I wanted to share. In 2003 Covenant Communications published a game entitled: Search, Ponder, and Play! (here) The person who submitted the design to Covenant Communications claimed it as being their own design or just didn't say that it was a re-theme of another game that had already been published: Aquarius (here). Aquarius is a game designed and published by Andrew Looney of Looney Labs in 1998. Search, Ponder, and Play! is a game that just put different images and themes on the cards and theme of Aquarius. Here is an image of the cards from each game side-by-side:

The game was brought to the attention of Andrew Looney in 2004, where upon he posted about it (read the whole thing here). His wife decided to write Covenant Communications a letter. Andrew Looney was, understandably, quite upset that such a thing had happened. As was his wife. In the end it appears that everything came out fairly well, as well as could probably be expected. Covenant Communications ended up producing a second version of the game in which they credit Looney Labs and state that permission has been gained to publish this version of the game. It's interesting to me that in all the designing and publishing that goes on that this kind of thing hasn't happened more.

Also, I wonder what kind of impact, if any at all, this sort of thing has on people's perception of LDS/Mormon themed games. A lot of my experience has been that LDS themed games are re-makes of previously published games. I think that this is probably a safe move by publishers. I mean, if a previously published game is successful, then re-doing it as an LDS themed game is more likely to be successful too. I don't know that this is the case or the reason behind this, but it seems logical. Designing games is also a very time consuming process. You have to design, play-test, tweak, play-test, revise, play-test, etc, etc, etc. But when a game is simply re-themed, there isn't much besides new artwork and a little thought that goes into the components that is needed.

Is there a market for new games in the LDS market? What do you think?